Haunting Galloway and the Horologist’s Timing-Room Where His Beat Strayed

A muted gravity fills Galloway House, settled deepest in the timing-room where Alistair Rowan Galloway, born 1872 in Inverness, tended the delicate motion of timepieces commissioned by merchants and railway clerks. The strayed beat in his final regulator clock endures like a confession caught before articulation. Everything rests as arranged by his disciplined hand, yet nothing resumes the promise of measured ticking.

A Beat at the Core of the Timekeeper’s Practice

Alistair learned horology from his uncle Hamish Galloway, a watchmaker whose cracked loupe lies folded on a tartan cloth near the hearth. Each morning he wound test mechanisms, aligned hairsprings beneath a jeweler’s lamp, and listened for symmetry in the pulse of each escapement. His order persists—gears sorted by diameter, springs coiled in labeled tins, and a chalked ellipse on the floor marking where he anchored his stance while regulating pendulums. Even the faint scratch across the oak counter preserves the arc of his hand steadying a watch case before its final test.

A Strain That Pulled His Craft Out of Rhythm

Soft rumor told that a stationmaster discovered a newly serviced pocket watch losing minutes unpredictably—a sharp blow to Alistair’s long-held reputation for accuracy. In the interior corridor, Hamish’s loupe pouch droops from a hook, torn at the seam. A mainspring barrel lies overturned beside a skirting board, its teeth catching stray light. Under a carved sideboard rests a revision sheet, its timing notes overwritten in strained graphite. A faint trail of metal filings marks a lone stair tread—debris shaken loose during a hurried descent. None of these traces confirm fault, yet each leans toward a quiet pressure he carried in silence, tightening beneath expectations he feared he could no longer meet.

Only the straying beat in his final clock remains—an intention paused within unmoving air. Whatever silenced Alistair’s practiced rhythm lingers unresolved.

Galloway House remains abandoned still.